Code Blue: Survival in the Sky. EMERGENCY NEAR THE POINT OF NO RETURN.

A Bad Time And Place For A Heart Attack

Poor Communications And Lack Of Cardiac Drugs May Have Helped Doom Hubert Hooper.

June 30, 1996|By John Crewdson, Tribune Senior Writer.

As Fiona Macdonald-Hughes later wrote in her report, "It was decided that we were to keep (Hooper) comfortable, give him oxygen and 7-Up for sugar levels . . . as the passenger was considered to be stable there was no need to divert to Shannon at this point."

But the decision not to land at Shannon was made on more than medical grounds. "I've never been into Shannon," Brian Walker said, "and that would be a little bit more stressful for all of us. Because it would be on an emergency basis, and we've got a new airport we're not familiar with, and we've got to find new gates and taxiways. That played into our thinking a little bit."

The word that Flight 918 would proceed to London as scheduled was not well-received in the back of the plane. "Toward the end of the flight we noticed he was getting worse," said Macdonald-Hughes. "And we were quite concerned. I told the cockpit. The first officer came down and he had a look. This was just after 5 a.m. (London time).

"He looked at the chap and he said `Yeah, I see what you mean.' We said, `We really want medical attention here. We think he's taking a bad turn. Where are we going?' They said, `We're going on to Heathrow.' "

When Sally Kozlowski heard there would be no diversion to Shannon, she remembers thinking Hubert Hooper would not live to see England again.

"His pulse had started to slow," Kozlowski said. "It went probably to 80, then 60, then it was hard to get anything. His respirations were getting more and more labored. I told the captain that we were definitely losing him. It was strongly suggested, by me, that we land at Shannon. But I couldn't make the final call."

As Flight 918 began its final approach to Heathrow, Hubert Hooper's heart gave out. "I don't know whether you've seen anybody die," Kozlowski said. "They're gasping for breath at the end. If we had landed at Shannon, he would still have been alive."

Attempt at resuscitation

While the flight attendants explained to the other passengers how to fill in their customs and immigration forms, Sally Kozlowski and two other passengers moved Hubert Hooper's body onto the floor of the aft galley. Although all United flight attendants are trained in CPR, none of them participated in the attempted resuscitation of Hubert Hooper.

"I did find that surprising," said Kozlowski, who is certified in CPR and who had been assured by the flight attendants earlier that they were capable of assisting in the event CPR became necessary.

"When we put him on the floor," Kozlowski said, "it was the passengers that did the CPR. There was a man that did the mouth-to-mouth and there was another girl there that was doing the heart compressions. I had the stethoscope. A lot of the people that were sitting in the back moved forward to empty seats."

By the time it became clear that Hubert Hooper was beyond reviving, the plane was only seconds from touching down. "We all had to take our seats because we were landing," Kozlowski said. "We left him on the floor. There was no way you could pick him back up and strap him into his seat. Mr. Hooper was a big man."

The paramedics were waiting at Heathrow's Terminal 3 and the body of Hubert Hooper was taken to the Crown Coroner's office in Uxbridge, not far from the airport. Sally Kozlowski, not feeling like a hero, went to rejoin her husband, an American computer executive, at their home in Cherry Hinton, Hampshire.

The crew of Flight 918 was the last to leave the plane. As they walked together up the jetway and into the terminal, some of the cabin crew refused to speak to the cockpit crew.

"There were a couple of flight attendants who were very negative towards the cockpit about not diverting," said Fiona Macdonald-Hughes. "They were much inclined as the flight progressed that they thought we should go to Shannon."

`He did have a heart attack'

Hubert Hooper's autopsy was performed the next day by Dr. Robert Chapman, a consulting pathologist at Guy's Hospital in London. According to Chapman's report, Sally Kozlowski had been correct. The official cause of death was coronary occlusion, a fatal blockage of the arteries that lead from the heart.

"To all intents and purposes, he did have a heart attack," Chapman said. "What we're talking about is ischemic heart disease, in which not enough oxygen reaches the heart muscle. Almost certainly what happened is that a small part of the plaque in the artery split, and that initiated a local clot.

"When the heart fails then you get lack of oxygen getting up to the brain. He probably died of some sort of arrhythmia, as a result of poor blood supply to his heart muscle. Usually that's what kills people with this sort of disease."